Posts tagged oh politics
I’ll say what this means to me
Gay rights in the US, state by state
I love informative data graphics. As a friend writes, regarding this one:
“The things about this graphic that people seem to not realize are: (a) the British are tracking our Civil Rights history better than we are, (b) although marriage rights are nice (in this graphic, icing on the figurative cake), there are innumerable basic rights and protections that the majority has and that the majority of states are like “meh, whatever” on, (c) these are just the written laws, not a metric of attitudes and “on the street” behavior (for better or worse, often worse) of the majority toward a minority, (d) oh Pennsylvania, we made April the official month of the Bible, but we’re nicely grayed”
“oh Pennsylvania” indeed.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) offered up some advice for women who don’t want to have a mandatory ultrasound before they terminate their pregnancy…[t]e quote in question came after Corbett was asked at a press conference whether “making [women] watch” an ultrasound went “too far.”
“I don’t know how you make anybody watch,” Corbett said. “You just have to close your eyes.”
(Source: 2012.talkingpointsmemo.com)
![POLITICS!
[Via Vintagraph]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m047qdhPPS1qzw4q1o1_500.jpg)
POLITICS!
[Via Vintagraph]
CHEYENNE — State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.
House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.
The task force would look at the feasibility of Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Miller, R-Riverton, has said he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon
Need I remind anyone: Wyoming is landlocked.
(to be fair: I’ve read some accounts that Rep. Brown added that amendment as an attempt to mark the absurdity of the bill. If so, mission accomplished.)
(Source: trib.com)
“Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America — more than six million — than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.
The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education.”
- From The Caging of America by Adam Gopnik. Worth reading.
WHEN YOU HAVE SEVEN CHILDREN IN D.C…THE SEWAGE THAT FLOWS INTO YOUR HOUSE FROM THE CABLE AND FROM THE INTERNET…YOU REALIZE WHAT DAMAGE IT IS DOING TO THE MORAL VALUES OF YOUR CHILDREN…[it] IS DOING DAMAGE. NOT JUST PHYSICAL DAMAGE, BUT IS DOING DAMAGE TO THEIR MORALITY.
-Rick Santorum, speaking live on December 17th.
“Not just physical damage.” Oh no! The internet punched my son! Rick Santorum: making me sad to be a Pennsylvanian since 1991.
In today’s news: H.R. 3321: [the] America’s Cup Act of 2011 was just signed into law, ”To facilitate the hosting in the United States of the 34th America’s Cup by authorizing certain eligible vessels to participate in activities related to the competition, and for other purposes.” That sounds pretty legit, right? I mean — wait, hold a second. What “other purposes?”
Well, these other purposes:
(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding sections 12112 and 12132 and chapter 551 of title 46, United States Code, the Secretary of the department in which the Coast Guard is operating may issue a certificate of documentation with a coastwise endorsement for each of the following vessels:
(A) LNG GEMINI (United States official number 595752).
(B) LNG LEO (United States official number 595753).
(C) LNG VIRGO (United States official number 595755).
LNG? That’s an odd designation for a yacht. Oh wait —
(2) LIMITATION ON OPERATION- Coastwise trade authorized under paragraph (1) shall be limited to carriage of natural gas, as that term is defined in section 3(13) of the Deepwater Port Act of 1974 (33 U.S.C. 1502(13)).
Huh. Yachts carrying…natural gas? That sounds a bit odd. In fact —
Turns out this isn’t about America’s cup at all. The original bill, which was just about that, was amended to allow Sunoco to re-flag several natural gas tankers as American ships. Which matters in that only American-flagged ships can move goods from an American port to an American port (and must be staffed with an American crew), and Sunoco had previously re-flagged all their tankers in the Marshall Islands — and needed congress to allow them to change back. This was necessary (they asset) in order to move oil — specifically, Marcellus Shale oil — without using a pipeline.
I don’t know enough to judge whether this is in itself a good thing or a bad thing — although I oppose the Marcellus Shale drilling, moving the oil by ship might be preferable to doing so by pipeline — this feels like exactly the wrong way to go about changing things. Who wants to go on record as voting against the America’s Cup act of 2011? Probably many fewer people who would be willing to vote against the Let’s Let Sunoco Ship Some Oil Act of 2011 — but maybe not. It should be at the very least debated on its own merits, not attached to something innocuous and voted for incidentally and perhaps accidentally.
The day the Supreme Court gathered behind closed doors to consider the politically divisive question of whether it would hear a challenge to President Obama’s healthcare law, two of its justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, were feted at a dinner sponsored by the law firm that will argue the case before the high court.
(Source: Los Angeles Times)
On Wednesday, NJ.com reported that taxpayers would be paying the credit for the show’s first season in 2009, as approved by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. “I can’t believe we are paying for fake tanning for ‘Snooki’ and ‘The Situation’, and I am not even sure $420,000 covers that,” said State Rep. Declan O’Scanlon (R). “This is a great investment for the taxpayers, as if they can make a show called ‘Jersey Shore’ anywhere else.
(Source: tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com)
